Christian asylum-seekers who fled Iran face separation amid Trump immigration crackdown

As people who had left Islam to convert to Christianity, America offered Liam Azizi and wife Hananeh Alikaram a safe space to practice their faith, making their treacherous journey across 11 countries from Iran to the US-Mexico border worth it.

But now they’re caught in the cross hairs of a Trump administration that’s willing to break couples and families up.

Leaving Islam in Iran is a crime, but only Azizi was offered asylum and has since settled in Sun Valley. Now, with Alikaram’s request for asylum denied, she’s being held in Louisiana awaiting deportation back to Iran, where she faces prosecution.

“ I was in the home church, because in Iran you cannot go to the church directly. It's forbidden for people, ordinary people,” Azizi told LAist. “ Some neighbor called the police or force and they came to our house and they captured us. They beat me.”

Liam Azizi and Hananeh Alikaram.

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Courtesy Liam Azizi

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LAist has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

Paulina Reyes-Perrariz, managing attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said when a family seeks asylum, their cases are typically connected. But with the current administration, she said we are seeing enforcement of family separation policies.

“ This speaks a lot on how the system is broken, how there is no full and fair asylum hearings all the time,” Reyes-Perrariz said. “If the family is separated, they're not able to call on them as a witness or they're not able to relay their story that can help their family member.”

The first Trump tenure was marked by children separated from their parents at the border. In the second term, she said, there has been “a biased enforcement” of separating children from parents for some nationalities.

“ What we need now is comprehensive immigration reform. What we're seeing is like this family where the system is working against them,” she said. “Someone that has been fleeing persecution was able to show that they do meet the standard as an asylee because of their harm suffered in their home country. How is it that one person was able to show that and their family member wasn't?”

Liam Azizi and Hananeh Alikaram.

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Courtesy Liam Azizi

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Azizi ran a website where people could connect with prayer services in Iran, but that was shut down. Alikaram used to post YouTube videos, but because she didn’t have a headscarf on, the government shut it down. Now, the couple have a pending court case in Iran because they converted to Christianity. Azizi is worried that if Alikaram is deported, she could be killed.

The young couple’s case is playing out against the backdrop of an immigration crackdown, driven by promises President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail. And in Iran, spurred by rising inflation after sanctions were reimposed by the United Nations, thousands of people have been protesting the current regime for weeks. Outside observers say hundreds of people have been killed, sparking international condemnation.

“ This is one of those situations where both the left and the right should be supportive,” said Kevin Kang,  pastor at Tujunga United Methodist Church and Crescenta Valley United Methodist Church and a member of CLUE or Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

Fleeing religious persecution 

Kang said he has encountered a handful of Iranians who have fled religious persecution in Iran and are seeking a safe haven in the U.S.

His church is currently providing shelter, converting a room to house refugees who fled Iran and were in the midst of their asylum journeys when they were detained by ICE agents, meaning - they had to restart their cases.

 ”So, you know, it's not just people getting detained at the border. It's people who legitimately got approved for asylum and then ICE decided to take them anyway,” Kang said.

The current crackdown on immigration, he said, is not just about closing the borders, “it’s about race and tribalism.”

Some of the refugees from Iran have spoken out to church members sharing the horrific journeys they had to endure to come to America, navigating forests in Panama and the drug cartels in Mexico.

“Some of our members who did vote for Trump because of the border issue, they even flipped where they were like, ‘I'm so sorry. I didn't realize how hard it is to get into our country like this, and how unjust the system is,’” Kang said.

For Azizi, the journey started in Brazil.

“ We could have been killed on that journey because it was full of cartels, full of danger. I saw a dead body in a Panama jungle in the Darien Gap,” he said.

The Darien Gap is a 60-mile pathless hike through dense rainforest and the only overland passage between South and Central America.

And now, that journey could have been futile for Alikaram as she awaits her fate in Louisiana.

“It's so, so hard and it's heartbreaking,” Azizi said. “For a 32-year-old man, it's very difficult to cry every night. But I'm crying.”